Artwork Details
- Title
- Face in the Crowd
- Artist
- Sound
- Date
- 2013
- Location
- Not on view
- Copyright
- © 2013, Alex Prager
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- three-channel video installation, color, sound; 11:52 minutes
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Figure group
- Object Number
- 2016.29.1
Artwork Description
Alex Prager draws inspiration from the rich color photography of William Eggleston and the Southern California moviemaking industry. Her studio mirrors that of large-scale film productions, resulting in the works that project a distinctive Hollywood aesthetic. Littered with parodied clichés of popular cinema and renderings of narrative tension, anxiety, and suspense, Face in the Crowd traces a spectrum of concerns: a fear of crowds and the desire to stand out among them; voyeurism and exhibitionism; the spectator's gaze; and the inability to live up to expectations. This work showcases the anxiety of being swept up by the masses while trying to create and maintain a sense of self--conditions long present in the physical world--amplified in the virtual spaces we inhabit today.